


Would it kill you to visit once in a while?

by ShadeSwift99



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Gen, Oneshot, Temporary Character Death, trigger warnings in the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeSwift99/pseuds/ShadeSwift99
Summary: Keeping himself and the Hermits from death with his totems is a point of pride for Impulse. However, things get a little awkward when your good friend’s alternate self is death incarnate, and now Impulse has some explaining to do.
Relationships: None
Comments: 29
Kudos: 149





	Would it kill you to visit once in a while?

**Author's Note:**

> I got a bit too busy to write for a while there, but I'm thrilled to be back at it! Have a fun Impulse oneshot for your troubles (yes it is mostly about death, yes it can still be a fun story, I promise!)
> 
> TW// Mild descriptions of burning, panic attack? (more like just being really overwhelmed)
> 
> Also warning for total ignorance of any existing Zedeath lore, I will confess to not doing my research in that department :)

It burned.

Well, of course it was going to burn. Impulse knew that as soon as his elytra gave out, but it had been a while since he’d last fallen into lava, and he’d forgotten how much it  _ hurt _ . The pain made it hard to concentrate as he forced his limbs to pull through the thick, sizzling liquid, driving for the shore, far too slowly to make it...a sharp  _ pop _ sounded and a rush of particles surrounded him as his totem activated. The burst of regen pushed back the burning pain for just a moment, just long enough for him to reach for his backup totem and grip it with shaking hands.  _ It won’t be enough… _

The second  _ pop _ made his ears ring as the backup totem activated. Why, why hadn’t he remembered to repair his elytra? Silently cursing his carelessness, he made one last desperate reach for the shore. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes as his fingers brushed the netherrack….

_ <impulsesv> tried to swim in lava _

\--------------------

The first thing Impulse did after respawning was facepalm.

_ Dang it! _ Great. Now he would have to put in extra hours just to get that stuff back, never mind grinding to replace all that quartz he’d been gathering. He should have just stuck to villager trading like he’d been planning to do, instead of venturing out to the far reaches of the Nether...oh well. It wasn’t all bad - at least the netherite gear would still be there, if he could get back in time. Best to stop moping and get out of bed, go find some backup gear and -

Wait. He wasn’t in his bed.

Impulse blinked, wondering briefly if he was still dazzled by the bright light of the lava. The ceiling he was staring at was not the cool blue and grey roof of his base. It was foggy and white, barely a ceiling at all, in fact.  _ Is this even a room? _ He gasped slightly as he realized he couldn’t even feel the surface he was resting on. The second he thought about it, however, the ground came into being underneath him. It was smooth and slick, not unlike glass, but he couldn’t exactly place what it might be…  _ What is going on? _

Slowly, cautiously, he turned his head to the side. The motion didn’t bring him any pain, but it didn’t feel quite  _ right _ either - as though his view had turned without the feeling of any muscles moving. To the left, there was only more fog. To his right, more of the same: a murky white expanse stretching past the horizon.

A vague memory was tugging at him now. He had been here before, he was sure of it...but wasn’t there something missing?

**“Well look who decided to finally turn up!”**

Impulse bolted upright, startled.  _ Oh. SomeONE missing. _ The memories came back in a rush.  _ Why now, and why today of all days….  _ He forced a smile and scrambled to his feet, turning to greet his host.

“Hello, Zedeath...”

**“Hello, indeed,”** the cloaked man huffed. His billowing hood moved with the force of his dramatic sigh. His sweeping robes and intimidating stature contrasted sharply with the childish way he crossed his arms over his chest, but to Impulse he still looked plenty threatening enough that an explanation was in order.

“Long time no see, huh.” Impulse chuckled awkwardly. “You know, things got busy, new season and all -”

Zedeath’s booming voice cut him off mid-thought.  **“You don’t** **_call_ ** **, you don’t** **_visit_ ** **, you didn’t even send a card for my birthday -”**

“You have a birthday?”

**“** **_Or_ ** **my deathday!”** Zedeath waved his arms in an expressive flurry of too-long sleeves. **“‘I’m busy’ this, ‘I’m working’ that, blah blah blah...surely he’s had a** **_moment_ ** **this season to come pay an old friend some mind, but noooooo, he doesn’t, does he, he starts selling** **_totems_ ** **instead - “**

“Who are you talking to exactly?”

**“SHHH! Don’t interrupt me, I’m monologuing!”**

Impulse gave a tiny nod of apology. “Ah. Sorry.”

**“It’s like you’ve been purposely trying** **_not_ ** **to die! Just to avoid me!”**

Impulse raised a finger in objection. “Well, actually, ‘not dying’ is generally something I like to go for just on principle -”

**“Silence, totem boy!”**

“It’s not just the totems, I also sell emeralds,” Impulse said very softly.

Zedeath massaged his temples. “ **What did I just say…”**

“And beacons,” Impulse near-whispered.

**“Irrelevant!”** Zedeath failed at hiding the slight grin that crept across his face.  **“You’re no fun to talk to anyway. I don’t know why I even bothered.”**

“Don’t ask me, I certainly couldn’t tell you.” Impulse shrugged, maintaining his friendly smile. “Well, now that that’s settled, you can just let me pass to respawn and -”

**“And then you’ll go hang out with** **_Mortal Zedaph_ ** **, and Mortal Zed is boring,”** Zedeath pouted.  **“And then I’ll be left here all alone again, just me and the fog…”** His pout shifted into something a little more lost, a little more empty-looking.

Impulse really did not want to be here. He needed to get back to his stuff, and he didn’t like this empty void, filled with nothing but mist and the presence of death...but he couldn’t just leave Zedeath here, friendless again for who knows how long. The least he could do was to stay for a chat.

“Fine, I won’t leave. Not yet.” He looked around for a place to sit, and a blank, featureless chair appeared behind him.  _ Unnerving. _ He sat down and looked at Zedeath expectantly. “What do you want to talk about?”

Zedeath beamed at him for a second before rearranging his face into an alarming middle ground between playful and sinister.  **“Oh, I don’t just want to** **_talk,_ ** **dear mortal.”**

His cloak billowed and the fog thickened, then dispersed, revealing a table and a second chair. On the table rested a small wooden chess set.

**“I want to play a game...** **_for your life_ ** **.”**

Zedeath lowered himself into the chair opposite Impulse, never breaking eye contact. As laughable as this performance was, meeting those hollow sockets still made a chill run down his spine.

“What if I don’t like chess,” Impulse said uneasily.

**“Of course you like chess, everyone likes chess. Besides, we played Twister last time.”** Zedeath sat back, folding his hands in his lap. “You go first.”

Impulse swallowed nervously and moved the first pawn. He was fairly confident in the outcome of this game - Zedeath probably just wanted to hang out, rather than drag his soul to the halls of eternal sleep. However, sensing his mortality hanging by a thread was never going to be one of Impulse’s favourite feelings. Still, if playing a game with Zedeath was the only way to respawn...he could stand the practice for his chess skills.

As the game wore on, Zedeath’s moves only served to support his theory. He stayed neck and neck with Impulse the entire round; matching every piece taken and countering every strategy with the practiced precision of someone with way too much time on their hands. It certainly seemed like he was trying to draw this out for as long as possible, more than he was trying to win. They traded lighthearted trash talk and foolish “strategy advice” between rounds, and Impulse even let his mind slip a little from the circumstances of the game to simply having fun with a friend.

The moment he let down his guard was the moment he lost.

One second he was snickering over one of Zedeath’s jokes and planning out his upcoming move, and the next, his king was cornered on the opposite side of the board. He blinked hard, not willing to believe it.

_ There must still be a way…. _ He tuned out Zedeath’s friendly chatter and scoured the board for options.  _ Pawns to the left and right...Zedeath’s own king up ahead…. _ A bead of sweat traced its way down his back. Search as he might, he couldn’t find a way out of this.

He was out of options and out of time.

Zedeath must have heard the shift in his breathing, and he slowly trailed off his latest story to examine the board. Impulse’s stomach dropped as Zedeath noticed his predicament and started to grin.

**“Well, well, well! Someone’s a bit rusty, aren’t they!”** he crowed. He rose from the table and banished the board with a snap of his bony fingers. The table and chairs disappeared as well, and Impulse was left scrambling for balance as Zedeath started pacing slow circles around him.

**“How does it feel to finally lose to Death, totem boy? Does it** **_burn_ ** **, knowing you were powerless against the inevitable? Knowing you could only run for so long?”**

The fog and the cloaked man started to blur together in his view, swimming around him in a nauseating whirlpool of black and white. Somehow, Impulse had miscalculated - badly. He felt dizzy, his mind still struggling to catch up with what just happened, and the only clear thought he could grasp onto was:  _ what would the other Hermits think? _ When he never came back from the nether, when he just disappeared with no word or warning, when he couldn’t be found no matter how Xisuma searched or how many messages Tango or Zedaph sent to his broken and burning communicator still lodged in the lava with his discarded armour, no answers or closure to ever arrive and him not even able to say goodbye…

**“Woah, woah, woah! Are you okay?”** The whirlpool came to an abrupt halt as Impulse felt a gentle hand on his back, guiding him into a newly-reappeared chair. He let his shaking knees give out and let himself fall into it, grateful for the much-needed support as his thoughts continued to race.

A puff of fog blew over him as Zedeath’s concerned face bent down into view.  **“You looked a bit ill there for a minute. What’s wrong?”**

_ What’s wrong?  _ Impulse laughed shakily, feeling it turn more into a sob near the end. “It’s...it’s just a lot to adjust to…”

**“What, you’re that unfamiliar with losing?”** Zedeath scoffed. **“Come on man, you can take the hit this once! I never win anything!”**

“‘This once’?”, Impulse blurted. “It’s not just ‘this once’! This is the ownership of my life and soul we’re talking about here, could you have the slightest bit of tact and just let me have a minute to -”

**“Wait, what?”** Zedeath’s brow furrowed.  **“Do you think I’m...** **_wait,_ ** **did you actually think I was going to keep you here if you lost?!”**

Impulse raised his head from his hands and tentatively paused on the road to hyperventilation. “Wait...you’re not going to claim my soul for eternity?”

**“I - what - no!”** Zedeath threw his hands in the air.  **“One, I know I’m already technically dead but Zedaph would** **_kill_ ** **me for that, two, who says I want your stinky old soul anyway, and three, we never even agreed to that! Besides, that’s a horrible thing to do to a person!”**

“But you said game for your life…”

**“Yeah, as in, we play and then you get to respawn! If I really wanted your soul I would’ve made you sign a contract!”** Zedeath tilted his head in thought. **“Although, since you seem so eager…”** He reached into his cloak and withdrew a book and quill.

“No, no no no no no, that should be all for today, thank you…!” Impulse rose from the chair and started backing away. “Don’t want to sign anything from you.”

**“Aww.”** He tucked the eternally binding document back into his cloak and sighed. **“Well, I guess I should let you get going then...unless you want to play another round?”**

Impulse still wanted to keep the poor guy company, but his frayed nerves were saying “long nap” much more than “round two” right now. “No, sorry, I’m kinda late to working on my base. There’s still so much to do…and I need to go gather more quartz.”

**“Very well.”** Zedeath smirked. **“At least you got to take a break, right? You always did say ‘I’ll rest when I’m dead’.”**

_ Break, right….  _ Impulse gave a watery chuckle. “I’ll say hi to Zedaph for you, okay?”

**“Do or don’t, I couldn’t care less.”** Zedaph waved his hand dismissively, again failing to hide his smile.  **“Enjoy your boring, normal respawn.”**

Impulse thought that by this point, he very much would.

\--------------------

He woke up to the continuous beeping of what seemed like a hundred missed messages on his communicator. He groaned and rolled out of bed onto the cold stone floor, taking the bedsheets with him. Not bothering to move from his position, he flicked open his communicator to calm down his friends.  _ At least I know I would have been missed. _

_ <impulsesv tried to swim in lava> _

_ <TangoTek> clumsy Impy _

_ <TangoTek> Lava is not for swimming _

_ <Xisuma> can you get your stuff back? _

A few minutes’ pause in the chat history, then:

< _ Xisuma> impulse? _

_ <TangoTek> impulse? _

_ <Xisuma> who’s near his base _

_ <Zedaph> I’ll check _

_ <Zedaph> he’s not there _

Impulse scrolled through the following flurry of concerned messages as the Hermits checked all his usual respawning spots. He felt so bad for making them worry...he better get in touch, quickly. He started thinking through how to explain what had happened to him, but he was soon interrupted in his apologetic typing by an unexpected netherite boot to the ribs. The person who had just tripped over him tumbled to the ground in a flailing heap of tangled limbs and curly blond hair.

“Oof!”

“Sorry,” Impulse croaked, winded.

“Sorry? _ I _ just tripped over  _ you, _ you don’t have to apologize - Impulse!”

Zedaph untangled himself and scrambled over, pulling Impulse to his feet. “Where were you man, we were so worried, are you alright, where  _ were _ you -”

Impulse staggered his way out of the heap of bedsheets and laughed. “Well, I  _ was _ alright until you came along…”

“Oh, shhh! Maybe don’t lie in the middle of floors then!” Zed giggled. “Seriously though, we couldn’t find you for the longest time! Are you sure you’re okay?”

Impulse closed his eyes for a moment, seriously considering the question. He’d had a rough day for sure, and he was still annoyed about losing his stuff, but… “Yes. Now that I’m back here with you guys, I’m alright.” He smiled softly and turned to grab some backup gear.

“Oh, and Zedaph?”

“Yeah?” Zed looked up from heaping the blankets back onto Impulse’s bed.

“Maybe say hi to Zedeath once in a while. I’ve got a feeling he might be a little lonely.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Feel free to let me know if you did, I'm worried I might be a bit rusty after not writing for a while...either way, this was a pretty fun warmup for me!


End file.
